Responsive to customer demands, laptop computers are becoming lighter and thinner. Manufacturers attempt to meet those demands, in part, by using less material in the chassis of the laptop computers. This lessening of the material leads to increased challenges in making the chassis sufficiently rigid to produce a high quality user experience. Some chassis are made entirely of plastic. In the case of low-cost plastic chassis (e.g., injection molded plastics), emphasis is currently placed on structural design. This emphasis limits the flexibility of an original design manufacturer (ODM) in terms of its manufacturing environment, because a simple change to improve the manufacturability at the ODM can nullify the structural design. Such nullification can destroy the structural quality of the chassis and the resulting end user experience.
Further, some chassis are made entirely of metal to produce a chassis that is stiffer than an all-plastic chassis. However, there are several issues with all-metal chassis. For example, a manufacturing process of a stamped chassis might not produce the look or texture desired, due to its manufacturing process. Indeed, best-in-class chassis designs are typically machined from metal to give the quality feel that higher-end consumers seek. These metal chassis are currently machined inside and out to achieve geometrical and surface finish requirements. However, this machining process is expensive and time consuming: it includes a multistep manufacturing process that takes more than an hour to complete a single D-Cover.